Lice Exterminator Rainbow Division Explanation

(U.S. SIGNAL CORPS PICTURE 111951)
Note: War department regulations require Signal Corps be given credit for any Signal Corps pictures used in publications.
Here’s a sight that will bring unpleasant memories to World War veterans — and thoughts of what is said to be the shortest “poem” ever written. The “poem” is:
Adam
Had’em!
For those or the younger generation who may not quite get the point, it might be explained that the queer looking vehicle with the War Department initials on it was a busy piece of apparatus during the World War.
It was a “cootie exterminator,” with the American soldiers stripping when it came around and putting their clothing inside the big tanks. Steam inside was supposed to kill the “cooties.”
For the real low—down on the contraption ask any overseas veteran. He’ll tell you that the outfit merely instilled new pep in the “cooties.”
It’s been a long time since a U.S. Signal Corps photographer took the picture of the “cootie exterminator” at the Rainbow Division field hospital in the Baccarat trench sector on May 4, 1918, but memories of “cooties’ will probably figure in the war stories that will be swapped when the Ohio Rainbow Division Veterans Association holds its 22nd annual state reunion in Hotel Lancaster, June 13 – 14.

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(U.S. SIGNAL CORPS PICTURE 111951)
Note: War department regulations require Signal Corps be given credit for any Signal Corps pictures used in publications.
Here’s a sight that will bring unpleasant memories to World War veterans — and thoughts of what is said to be the shortest “poem” ever written. The “poem” is:
Adam
Had’em!
For those or the younger generation who may not quite get the point, it might be explained that the queer looking vehicle with the War Department initials on it was a busy piece of apparatus during the World War.
It was a “cootie exterminator,” with the American soldiers stripping when it came around and putting their clothing inside the big tanks. Steam inside was supposed to kill the “cooties.”
For the real low—down on the contraption ask any overseas veteran. He’ll tell you that the outfit merely instilled new pep in the “cooties.”
It’s been a long time since a U.S. Signal Corps photographer took the picture of the “cootie exterminator” at the Rainbow Division field hospital in the Baccarat trench sector on May 4, 1918, but memories of “cooties’ will probably figure in the war stories that will be swapped when the Ohio Rainbow Division Veterans Association holds its 22nd annual state reunion in Hotel Lancaster, June 13 – 14.